Latest News & Articles

Native Instruments teaming up with Alicia Keys

Together with Danish sample specialist Thomas Skarbye and impulse response expert Ernest Cholakis, Alicia Keys has created a virtual piano that meets her professional standards and embodies the soulful sound that has become her trademark as a superstar. This is the piano sound that has helped Miss Keys win multiple Grammys and reach the top of the charts. ALICIA’S KEYS was sampled from her own playing, recorded in the artist’s own studio under the supervision of her trusted engineer, Ann Mincieli.

RP Predator Electro Bass sound tutorial with The WideBoys

This tutorial shows us how to create a popular electro bass sound from scratch using a simple synth. In this case the Rob Papen Predator VSTi. This video is a must see for budding electro house producers. The Wideboys consist of the dynamic duo Eddie Craig & Jim Sullivan. The boys won “Best Dance Act” at The Urban Music Awards 2008 beating off stiff competition from Basement Jaxx, Booty Luv, Donaeo & DJ Q.

Pioneer discontinue the CDJ-1000 MK3

With the release of the CDJ-2000 this news doesn’t really comes as a surprise but Pioneer have announced that the legendary CDJ-1000 has come to an end. This remarkable CD player has spanned almost a decade as the market leader, evolving through 3 models.

HG Fortune Percumat 2 – Rhythm machine

This is a versatile Rhythm machine for backing drums percussion so definitively not an 808 or 909 type thingie. It features 6 instrument parts / slots to choose from 512 inbuilt drum & percussions sounds. There are two step sequencers one for setting up the beat steps in groups of 4 x 8 steps (or 4 x half a bar) labeled A1, A2, B1 & B2, while the 2nd sequencers on the left allows you to control a sequence of the 8 step beat groups in 16 steps. Thus it is easy to get variations without having to program complete 16 step bars. In addition to that there is an Auto Track Mute feature for tracks 4, 5 and 6 to have one or two tracks muted for a certain range.

New Sounds and Samples on Sample Saturday

These are the releases we have encountered this week on the Loops and Samples front. Just like the quality of the audio software we use these days the quality of the content we use (loops and samples) equally matches the high standards of this software. Below is this weeks selection.